2022 Topic 07: Specimen Jar {by Liesbeth Fidder De Vos} with Vintage Ink and the Dog stamps

Hi everyone, it's Liesbeth here with you today, and I'm here to share with you my Specimen Jar project! However it's not a jar...it's an altered book with niches and drawers, in a vintage style.

Starting a project like this, I never know where it will end... I was inspired by this two wonderful stamp sets! Very vintage and a bit mysterious, they made me think about a cabinet book with secret holes and drawers. So I just started with that idea and this is what I made!

5 cards in the side opening.

Two niches and two drawers.

I challenged myself to use ALL the stamps in the two stamp sets, and it worked, I did! :-) I used PaperArtsy Vintage Ink and the Dog ID05 and ID10. I really love them!

The basic item for this cabinet book is, needless to say...a book. I used an old one, a nice blue color, gold printed at the spine. A newer one works too. I chose the color combination blue/turquoise/brown/off-white, so these four PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paints were perfect: Captain Peacock, Blue Lagoon, Chocolate Pudding and Nougat.This combination always works perfect for a vintage style. (And the blues are my favourite colours).

 

The cover of my old book is made of blue fabric, with a nice golden print, so I decided not to paint it and just leave it the way it is.

Let's start: The drawers are made out of two small match-boxes. I used the last part of the book, a stack of pages as thick as the match-boxes. I drew the size on the side of the book and also a niche in the center.

I also drew the match-boxes and the niche onto the top page.

Using a glue stick, I glued the edges of all the pages of the ,drawer part' together... yes...every page. ;-)

Onto the first page of the book I drew a house shape, using the house stamp as a guideline as shown. Again, I glued all the pages under it  together, until about 10 pages are left between this house piece and the drawer piece.

Now the big job started: carefully I cut the layers off, until 10 pages are left (Tip: put a small cutting mat in between).

I also cut out the hole for the drawers and the niche. I glued the boxes into the holes. I covered the sides, the cutting edges, of the big niche with a strip of bookpaper for a nice finish (no picture). Now I also glued the ten left over pages together to cover the niche and the match-boxes. Everything is glued together now.

Using the Fresco Finish paint, the two blues, Nougat and a tiny bit of brown, I painted the insides of the house niche and the boxes. I mixed the paints on my brush and I didn't work very neatly for a nice old and weathered effect. The left page and around the house niche I painted with Fresco Finish Nougat, Distress ink Vintage Photo, water and a little brown paint I made spots and smudges, again to create an old effect.

I stamped the left page here and there with the fern and text stamp using Distress ink Vintage Photo and Gathered Twigs. With these two Distress inks I also sponged the edges of the entire book and the match-boxes to create a very vintage look.

That border stamp is so perfect for this!! I spread a thin layer of Fresco Finish paint Blue Lagoon on a piece of paper and used it as an ink pad. I stamped it at the bottom edge and on the small pieces at the top. Later on I also stamped it with Distress ink along the niche.

Using black ink (Tsukineko StazOn Jet Black), I stamped some texts in the niche. I covered the sides with lace and made a cardstock shelf at the bottom of the niche.

In this phase I still didn't know exactly how I was going to finish it. If I start stamping like crazy, the ideas always come naturally! :-) So I took pieces of brown, white and kraft cardstock and started the stamping. I used almost every stamp of the two beautiful sets! I used the black StazOn again, and also Ranger Archival Coffee.

Then I realized I needed a bit more colour, so I painted a piece of kraft paper very raggedly with the four Fresco paints. I started with Nougat and after that I added Fresco Finish Crackle Glaze here and there. After drying I painted the colours with an old credit card and (the right piece) with a pallet knife. I stamped some of the texts onto this painted cardstock.

Now it was time to put everything together and combine things, and to fill the boxes and niches! I cut out lots of the stamped images and assembled them till I was satisfied. Of course I had lots of left overs, but I will use them later, I never throw things like that away! I painted the faces with pink watercolour and sponged the edges with the Vintage Photo and Gathered Twigs Distress ink using a blending tool. I used a colour pencil (red) and a white gel pen here and there.

Time for some embellishments: I inked one of the text stamps wth StazOn and rolled small bottles over the stamp.

Using PaperArtsy printed tissue paper (you can also stamp on tissue paper yourself) I tore out small pieces of text and glued them into the match-boxes using gel medium. I also glued some small shells and pen nibs in the boxes and  added ring fasteners at the outside.

I composed five cards/tags to keep in the niche on the side of the book. I combined lots of stamps and also affixed some metal pieces and  sometimes an extra layer of black cardstock.

Left page finished.

Right page finished. I attached the stamped house and wings using 3D foam tape.

The little bottles are filled with mini beads, glitter, tiny shells, and I tied string around them. I also added some metal stuff and glued everything with tacky glue.

Detail of a drawer.

At the very last minute I decided to stamp this wonderful stamp onto the front cover of the book, using gold embossing powder. 

I think it's all done now!

Oh how I love to do this kind of time-consuming projects, it was so much fun! The process of combining the different PaperArtsy stamps is great! Cutting out the niches is the hardest part. If you can't or don't want to cut this much, why not try something like this in a shadow box, or onto the backside of a canvas? There are so many possibilities! Hope you give it a try and hope you will enjoy it as much as I did! Have fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

Liesbeth

Blog: Liesbeth's Arts & Crafts

Facebook: liesbeth.fidderdevos

Instagram: liesbeth_fidder

 

2021 Topic 15: Journaling Gratitude with VID {Jennie Atkinson}

  2021 Topic 15: Journaling Gratitude

How do you create a textured background that's full of interest and different textures but that doesn't 'fight' with the sentiments or front forward details? Read on, and Jennie lists a number of techniques to get you started. Wouldn't we all like to see her drawer of unused delicate gel prints too?!

~ Keren.

Hi everyone, it's Jennie (Live the Dream) with you today, and I'm here to share with you a journalling page using Vintage Ink and the Dog stamps - perhaps not everyone's first go to for a journalling page.

I find that many of the VID sets have small stamps which are just perfect for adding to a torn collage background and for this double spread I decided to use some papers previously created on the gel plate using PaperArtsy Fresco paints (and possibly like me you have a drawer full !) I like using torn collage as it allows me to get some different colours onto the journal pages which I find difficult if painting direct.

I have also used a single set of quote stamps by Alison Bomber relating to Time. Time is something that I seem to have had in abundance this last couple of years but it still goes as quickly and both the situation we find ourselves in globally and a couple of personal events have really made me think about the moment, looking neither back or forward, but to be grateful to live in the present.

If you are a fan of gel plate printing you will know how easy (and quickly) you can accumulate many different sheets of prints, parts of which might be beautiful and amazing and the rest of the sheet quite dismal. There's always that chance of pulling another beauty so you just keep going.

I chose some colours which I thought might go together, along with some small pieces of old text paper which had been coloured with Infusions and a bit of stencilling. 

At this stage of a journalling page I never have a plan ! but I do start with a good quality thick watercolour paper so I can throw as much at it as I like. I started tearing some bits of the printed papers, along with some more open text and music. My notes on the back of the papers indicated that I had used a combination of PaperArtsy Frescos and I used two of them to carry through to the pages.

Sage                    Granny Smith

Aquamarine        Captain Peacock

Chalk                    Sorbet

Once I had a bit of an idea about colours and placement I chose my Vintage Ink & The Dog stamp sets. Each of these sets has text and number stamps which work well on the printed papers.

ID08

ID09

ID10

Once everything gets stuck down it starts to look a bit more organised but still very basic.

The success of this type of paper collage is to use different techniques to push those papers into the background. It takes time and sometimes needs experimentation but I have found these techniques to work. 

Firstly I use a light colour of PaperArtsy Fresco paint (Chalk) to blend in around the edges of the torn paper. I use my finger to add the paint and a dry brush to spread it out. You can see the difference already between the two pages.

I then go in with a darker colour (this time PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Sage) which will give me some darker areas for the next stage however the beauty of using paints in this manner is that you can always tone colours down by going back in with a lighter colour later).

Another means of knocking back the papers and tying everything together is to use a stencil and texture paste. I like to keep the stencilling open but with a definite shape which can be seen. Over-stamping with the same stamps using second and third generation stamping also ties the individual layers together and knocks those papers further back!

PS178

I am not a great fan of my own handwriting but I am a great fan of Alison's wonderful quotes. 

 

EAB17

Sometimes I use whole quotes but more often than not look to isolate individual words which sum up what I want to say. 

Tea dyed paper always seems to work well and is strong enough to withstand gluing onto a textured surface.

My final technique for pulling the pages together is to use machine stitching both around the edges of the pages and to highlight vertical and horizontal areas. Sometimes this is very useful for hiding a bit of a ragged edge which escaped the painting stage!

A thoughtful image was needed as a focal point and this is one of my favourites. I managed to find some gel plate papers which had a little white on them which meant her face remained relatively clear. 

ID07

The paper was very thin, so I layered it onto some matt board, but this did give me the opportunity of being able to layer other elements underneath.

I have used more of the Sage on this page but I love how the blue pops around the outside edge.

Journalling is a very personal means of creativity and sometimes difficult to share publicly. However during the creative process you think about the sentiments; what is important to you and it can be quite an uplifting process.

That said, all the techniques I have utilised can be used in many different ways and in many different projects, not just for journalling. I looked through most of my collection of Alison's quotes in order to find the right words and that was a lovely process in itself. 

Paper collage can be fun but I find it works best to start without any great expectation of the end result. Just go with it and enjoy the process. I am pleased to report that it made a slight dent in my drawer of gel plate prints!

Thank you for joining me and happy crafting.

Jennie x

Blog: Live the Dream
Instagram: atkinsonjennie